The Music of​ Dr. Seuss

Americana Song of the Week"She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain"

Monday

Dr. Seuss was not a musician or a composer, but he was a lyricist. Many of his stories became animated features, and many of those features included songs composed and sung by various artists.

The Lorax was Dr. Seuss' personal favorite of his books. He was able to create a story addressing economic and environmental issues without it being dull. "The Lorax," he once explained, "came out of me being angry. In The Lorax I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might."

Dr.Seuss wrote the book, but director, Chris Renaud, brought it to the big screen. In the movie, computers helped to bring the Truffula trees to life in a stunning array of colors. The music is just as rich and fun as the truffula trees in the movie.

John Powell and Cinco Paul are the composers responsible for all the original music on The Lorax soundtrack. John Powell is an English composer, best known for his scores to motion pictures. He has been based in Los Angeles since 1997 and has composed the scores to over fifty feature films. Cinco Paul is an American screenwriter. He, and his friend Ken Dario, are primarily known for writing screenplays for animated films, including Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, Despicable Me, Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, and Despicable Me 2.

Listening Example"Let it Grow" from The Lorax​​The book and the movie are quite different. In this scene from the movie, the people of Thneedville are realizing that they need the truffula trees. They are declaring that they need to let the tree grow.

Tuesday

Did you know that Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham on a dare? Ted Geisel’s publisher bet that Geisel couldn’t write a book using only 50 different words. In an effort to make learning to read more exciting for kids, he wrote a silly tale about a picky eater (a common complaint of many parents) and a fellow who won’t take “No” for an answer. The result? Green Eggs and Ham.

Dr. Seuss wrote “Horton Hears a Who!” in the fall of 1953. It was published in 1954 by Random House publishers. The book's main theme, "a person's a person no matter how small", was Geisel's reaction to his visit to Japan, where the importance of the individual was an exciting new concept. It is also a theme of equality for all, no matter their size, race, relgion, etc.

The film version of Horton Hears a who was produced by Blue Sky Studios and included such big name actors as Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, and Carol Burnett

Listening Example

The final song, “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” was originally a song written and performed by a band called REO Speedwagon. In Horton Hears a Who, this song shows how grateful Horton is to the mayor and how grateful the mayor is to Horton.

Wednesday

Did you know that the book, “The Cat in the Hat” was written using only 236 vocabulary words? In fact, The Cat in the Hat book has 1626 words. Divide that by a vocabulary of 236 to determine that each word was used, on average, almost 7 times.

Only one word has 3 syllables. (Can you find it? Hint: it's under the word “one” on the word cloud and you'll have to squint. The word is “another”) 14 have 2, and the rest have only one. Two compound words are the longest words in the book: "playthings" and "something."

Seuss said that the challenge of writing the book with so few words caused it to take 9 months to write. Perhaps all that hard work is what has made the book such a success. As of 2007 the book had been printed in 20 languages and sold over 250 million copies worldwide.

Listening Example

The Cat in the Hat has been adapted for various media, including theater, television, film, and educational software. The animated musical TV special premiered in 1971 and starred Allan Sherman as the Cat. Today’s listening example “Cat, Hat” is from that TV special. Start at 16:37

Thursday

Dr. Seuss was born March 2, 1904. How many candles would be on his cake today?

"The Hoobub and The Grinch" original poem

Giesel working on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" 1957

The Grinch first appeared in a 32-line illustrated poem by Dr. Seuss called "The Hoobub and the Grinch," which was originally published in the May 1955 edition of Redbook magazine. Dr. Seuss began work on How the Grinch Stole Christmas! a couple years later, around the beginning of 1957. Dr. Seuss wrote the book quickly and was mostly finished with it within a few weeks.

Dr. Seuss said that he considered himself to be the Grinch. In fact, he stated "I was brushing my teeth on the morning of the 26th of last December when I noticed a very Grinch-ish countenance in the mirror. It was Seuss! So I wrote about my sour friend, the Grinch, to see if I could rediscover something about Christmas that obviously I'd lost." Seuss's step-daughter, Lark Dimond-Cates, stated in a speech in 2003, "I always thought the Cat... was Ted on his good days, and the Grinch was Ted on his bad days." Cohen notes that Seuss drove a car with a license plate that read "GRINCH"

Listening Example

"You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" is a Christmas song that was originally written and composed for the 1966 cartoon special How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The lyrics were written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, the music was composed by Albert Hague, and the song was performed by Thurl Ravenscroft. The song's lyrics describe the Grinch as being foul, bad-mannered and sinister, using increasingly creative put-downs, metaphors and similes, beginning with the opening line "you're a mean one, Mr. Grinch"